Eduardo Escobedo, 39, a convicted marijuana trafficker who worked for Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, a son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was shot dead on Thanksgiving morning in the 14200 block of Towne Avenue, in an industrial stretch of Willowbrook in Los Angeles County.[1] Escobedo and a second man, Guillermo De Los Angeles Jr., 47, died at the scene, and a third man was taken to a hospital with gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening.[1] Sheriff’s deputies went to the warehouses, truck yard and pallet storage area around 8 a.m. after the shooting, and Lieutenant Omar Camacho said there appeared to have been a gathering or party at the location from the night before into the early morning.[1] El Financiero, citing the Los Angeles Times, reported that Escobedo was shot on the morning of Thursday 23 November in an industrial zone, and that a third wounded man was taken to hospital.[2] NBC Los Angeles reported that Escobedo was shot after an all-night party at what area workers described as a clandestine club, and that the sheriff’s department had not revealed a motive.[3] ABC7 reported that no arrests had been announced in the killings.[4]

Prosecutors said at a 2014 detention hearing that Escobedo had become the main distributor of marijuana in Los Angeles for Guzman Salazar, and he laundered the proceeds in part by buying exotic cars and shipping them to Culiacan, Sinaloa.[1] He served four years and nine months in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to distribute more than 10,000 kilograms of marijuana and laundering drug proceeds, and was released in 2018.[1] Prosecutors also described how, in October 2013, Escobedo was recorded discussing with Guzman Salazar the smuggling of more than five tons of marijuana through a tunnel under the U.S.-Mexico border, and authorities seized 2.7 tons of cannabis from one of his couriers.[1]

Escobedo was alleged to have ordered the 2008 killing of a rival trafficker, Jose Luis Macias, who was shot in a car on the 101 Freeway, but he was never charged, while his brother and another man were convicted and are serving life sentences.[1] After his release Escobedo opened a chain of hibachi restaurants and food trucks and successfully had his federal probation ended early, a judge calling him “an enormous success.”[1] The other man killed, De Los Angeles, was a member of the 18th Street gang who had been released from federal prison in December 2022 after serving 10 years for distributing methamphetamine.[1]